Harry Potter Lexicon Minute

Harry Potter Lexicon Minute

The Harry Potter Lexicon

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The Harry Potter Lexicon website has been in existence for almost two decades. Over that time, J.K Rowling thrilled us with her magical creation — in novels, interviews, on her websites, on Twitter, and more.And here at the Lexicon, a small group of dedicated fans have worked very hard over all those years to catalogue all the magical details she revealed. The Lexicon website has always been seen as the gold standard for careful research and faithfulness to Rowling’s created world, all because of these amazing fans.Now we editors of the Lexicon would like share some of what we’re so passionate about in a new way. So we’ve creating this podcast as a way for you to hear from us. It’s called the Harry Potter Minute, and in it you’ll hear the voices of our editors sharing a few of the many little things which delight us about the Wizarding World. We are fans from all over the globe who love to spend our time keeping track of the interesting details and obscure references which make Rowling’s work so rich and wonderful.In each podcast, one to two minutes in length, we’ll talk about anything from cool trivia and interesting canon passages to the latest Wizarding World news. We might share something that’s stuck in our heads as we researched the books or maybe recall some event from the history of Harry Potter fandom.The podcasts will come out a couple of times a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We hope you’ll join us! And we’d love to hear from you as well. Feel free to use the comment section on the blogpost for each podcast to post your thoughts.Special thanks go to Felicia Cano who gave us permission to use her amazing artwork of Hermione reading a book for the logo.

Latest Episodes

OP34: Angrier Than the Occasion Warranted

In the 34th chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we get to explore the wondrous Department of Mysteries. Anyone reading the books for the first time will tell you that by the time we get to this chapter, our curiosity is definitely piqued. Between Harry’s dreams and the odd references back in book four, we’ve definitely built up our curiosity about this part of the Ministry. When the book first came out, fans theorized that Rowling probably wrote this chapter with the movies in mind, almost challenging them to recreate on film her wild and vivid descriptions. We were all a little disappointed when only the Hall of Prophecies and the Death Chamber made it into the film version. We wanted to see the Brain Room, the Planet Room, and particularly the Time Chamber with its huge bell jar where the Death Eater’s head was transfigured into that of a baby. The Department of Mysteries is a wild, weird, wonderful, oversized magical carnival fun house. What I’d like to focus on in this discussion, however, is something a lot more subtle. I’d like to zero in on the reaction we get from Hermione to the archway and veil in the Death Chamber. As always, we’re seeing this moment through the eyes of Harry. His reaction is actually mirrored by Luna. He is intrigued by the archway and then drawn to it. He’s not just curious, the way he is about everything else in the Department of Mysteries. Nothing else he’s seen can draw his focus away from the desperate mission at hand, rescuing Sirius from Voldemort. The archway and its gently moving veil is different. He is mesmerized by it. He forgets his mission and moves closer, listening. Here’s how Rowling describes Harry’s reaction: He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil. We learned way back in Prisoner of Azkaban that Harry has the almost supernatural ability to sense the presence of someone even if they can’t be seen. This is from chapter 3: Harry opened his trunk again and pushed the contents aside, looking for the Invisibility Cloak – but before he had found it, he straightened up suddenly, looking around him once more. A funny prickling on the back of his neck had made Harry feel he was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the large square houses. He bent over his trunk again, but almost immediately stood up once more, his hand clenched on his wand. He had sensed rather than heard it: someone or something was standing in the narrow gap between the garage and the fence behind him. Harry squinted at the black alleyway. If only it would move, then he’d know whether it was just a stray cat or — something else. In Goblet of Fire chapter nine it happens again.

7 MIN15 hours ago

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Wizards Unite: The Calamity

In the new Wizards Unite game by Niantic, the mysterious Calamity is threatening the Statute of Secrecy. It’s stealing magical people, creatures, and items of significance from different periods of time and leaving them randomly scattered around the world with the protection of various magical beings. The cause of the Calamity is under investigation by the Ministry, with the help of players of the game, who are recruits to the Statute of Secrecy Task Force. In the Back To Hogwarts event that ran from August 27 to September 3, Professor McGonagall alerted players that the Sorting Hat had been taken from Hogwarts, and in her concern, she moves on to some dark speculation: “For years after the Battle of Hogwarts, virtually all of our students could see the Thestrals. It was a constant reminder of the cost of that horrible fight. I just hope that the Calamity doesn’t eventually condemn another generation of students to the same fate.” Naturally, this led me to some dark speculation ...

3 MIN4 days ago

LikesComments

Free Will, Divination, and Time Travel Part 2

We know that prophecies exist in Harry’s world. All of the prophecies that affect Harry in some way eventually come to pass. The wording is always ambiguous enough to cause anxiety, though. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord” meets these particular characteristics and will either kill Voldemort or die trying… or kind of both. Voldemort’s “servant has been chained these twelve years” and will soon rejoin his master, but—plot twist—the servant isn’t the prisoner for whom the book is named. “When unseen children murder their fathers, then will the Dark Lord return”—but maybe not, erm, permanently. If Firenze is to be believed, occupants of the Wizarding World have some free will—but the “great tides of evil or change” will come and go more or less as the heavens foretell. The ambiguity of the Prophecies we encounter in the series seems to act as a catalyst for these “great tides of evil or change.” It seems to me that the anxiety provoked by these proph...

3 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

Free Will, Divination, and Time Travel Part 1

I’ve been reading the Jim Kay-illustrated edition of Sorcerer’s Stone to my cat, because I feel like that version deserves to be read aloud, and Scraps is a pretty good audience. We just finished Chapter 15 – The Forbidden Forest, and it brought something to the front of my mind that I’ve been thinking about for a while: is there free will in the Wizarding World? This is the chapter in which Harry meets the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest—Ronan, Bane, and Firenze. Bane is furious with Firenze for interacting with Harry and saving him from Voldemort. Firenze tells Harry, “The forest is not safe at this time—especially for you.” Later, he tells the furious Bane, “This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this forest, the better.” Bane responds, “What have you been telling him? … Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?” Every other time I have read this scene, I have al...

2 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

About Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

It’s the first of September and in the Wizarding world, children starting at age eleven will board the Hogwarts Express at King’s Cross Station to travel north to Scotland, and the new school year will begin. I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about some of the interesting facts and canon questions about this whole ritual. First off, the magical gateway into Platform Nine and Three Quarters is not hidden behind a brick wall. That looks really cool in the films, but that’s not accurate. According to Rowling, the magical platform is reached by walking through a metal barrier. Here’s what it says in Chamber of Secrets chapter 5: He wheeled his trolley forward cautiously until it was right against the barrier and pushed with all his might. The metal remained solid. (CS5) Here’s how it’s described in Prisoner of Azkaban: Mr. Weasley strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry’s trolley and apparently very interested in the InterCity 125 that...

4 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

Canon Thoughts: Prisoner of Azkaban

In my series called Canon Thoughts, I’ve given my comments about books one and two of the Harry Potter series as well as about some of the early interviews which Rowling gave back in 1999 and 2000. I’ve also given my take on Crimes of Grindelwald. Now it’s time to talk about Prisoner of Azkaban. Ah, what do I say about book three? Many fans call this their favorite book of the series. I would definitely list it in my top three. So what makes this book so special? First of all, the book is the most tightly plotted of the series. Later books are plotted very well, certainly, but those books are also at least twice as long. There’s a lot more time in books four, five, and six for tangents and descriptions of day-to-day life at Hogwarts. Don’t get me wrong, I love that part of the stories. It’s one of the reasons why the Harry Potter books are so much more enticing than the Fantastic Beasts films. We all want to live at Hogwarts. We want to take classes and try out for the Quiddit...

5 MIN2 weeks ago

LikesComments

CC5: Act 1 Scenes 6-7: Living in the Past

In today’s minute I’m going to discuss Act 1 Scenes 6 and 7. Both of these scenes share a similar characteristic: Harry takes a lot of heat from someone who is stuck in the past. Delphi speaks a line in scene six, referring to Amos: “It’s tough to live with people stuck in the past, isn’t it?” In scene six, Amos is the character stuck in the past. He was never able to find peace over Cedric’s death, and after hearing the rumors of the super powerful Time Turner he comes to Harry’s house to try to guilt Harry into using this new Time Turner to go into the past and save Cedric’s life. Harry already has plenty of guilty feelings, though, he doesn’t need Amos to make him feel that way. Regardless, he won’t break the rules of Wizarding Law to change the past. Amos brings up the phrase ‘Kill the spare’, it is so tragic that the only reason Cedric died is because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. ‘Kill the spare’ comes up later in the play, so this is probably a l...

3 MIN2 weeks ago

LikesComments

Horcrux Deaths

Today we’re going to talk Horcruxes. Specifically, how they’re made. I started thinking about this subject when I read a particularly interesting passage from Half-Blood Prince. Here’s what caught my eye: Dumbledore says that Voldemort “seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. … After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.” (HBP23) The reason this struck me is that Dumbledore is actually wrong here. For the most part, Voldemort didn’t use important or significant deaths for making his Horcruxes. He may have intended to originally, but that certainly wasn’t how it worked out. Let’s take a look at all the murders he chose: The first Horcrux he made was the ring, created with the murders of his father and grandparents. These victims were certainly important as they represented his Muggle blood. By murdering the Ridd...

5 MIN3 weeks ago

LikesComments

OP33: What Was She Thinking

At the end of the last chapter, Hermione launched an impromptu plan to free herself and Harry from Umbridge, who had caught them using her office fireplace to talk to someone. Hermione’s plan was to pretend that they were talking to Dumbledore, telling him that the powerful secret weapon he’d created was ready to use. Hermione pretended to break down and say that she was willing to lead Umbridge to it. Umbridge fell for the ruse and forced her and Harry to lead her to the weapon, which Hermione told her was secreted away in the Forbidden Forest. In this chapter, the plan works. Well, sort of works. Okay, the only reason it works is because of the fortuitous arrival of Grawp. If the giant hadn’t shown up, things would have worked out very badly indeed for Harry and Hermione. What went wrong? More to the point, what exactly was Hermione’s plan? What was she thinking? From the things she says to the Centaurs, it’s clear that her plan was to bring Umbridge into the Forest and let t...

4 MINAUG 17

LikesComments

New Historicism and Harry Potter

New historicism is an approach to literature which regards a work of literature as a product of the historical moment in which it was created and as embedded in the ideas and ideologies present in that time. For example, a new historicist might be interested in what Elizabethan beliefs about gender roles can tell us about Shakespeare’s plays and vice-versa. New historicist criticism can become more challenging when we think about works of literature that are nearer to our own time and belief systems, but it can provide us with interesting tools for thinking about Harry Potter, recent history, and the way we think about both. It is a commonplace to compare Voldemort and the Death Eaters to Hitler and the Nazis, but new historicism prompts us to connect these similarities to the way the world was in the early 1990s when Rowling conceived of Harry’s story. As writers commenting on the abundance of television shows about Nazi Germany in the 1990s, such as Mark Schone, for example, hav...

2 MINAUG 14

LikesComments

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Latest Episodes

OP34: Angrier Than the Occasion Warranted

In the 34th chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we get to explore the wondrous Department of Mysteries. Anyone reading the books for the first time will tell you that by the time we get to this chapter, our curiosity is definitely piqued. Between Harry’s dreams and the odd references back in book four, we’ve definitely built up our curiosity about this part of the Ministry. When the book first came out, fans theorized that Rowling probably wrote this chapter with the movies in mind, almost challenging them to recreate on film her wild and vivid descriptions. We were all a little disappointed when only the Hall of Prophecies and the Death Chamber made it into the film version. We wanted to see the Brain Room, the Planet Room, and particularly the Time Chamber with its huge bell jar where the Death Eater’s head was transfigured into that of a baby. The Department of Mysteries is a wild, weird, wonderful, oversized magical carnival fun house. What I’d like to focus on in this discussion, however, is something a lot more subtle. I’d like to zero in on the reaction we get from Hermione to the archway and veil in the Death Chamber. As always, we’re seeing this moment through the eyes of Harry. His reaction is actually mirrored by Luna. He is intrigued by the archway and then drawn to it. He’s not just curious, the way he is about everything else in the Department of Mysteries. Nothing else he’s seen can draw his focus away from the desperate mission at hand, rescuing Sirius from Voldemort. The archway and its gently moving veil is different. He is mesmerized by it. He forgets his mission and moves closer, listening. Here’s how Rowling describes Harry’s reaction: He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil. We learned way back in Prisoner of Azkaban that Harry has the almost supernatural ability to sense the presence of someone even if they can’t be seen. This is from chapter 3: Harry opened his trunk again and pushed the contents aside, looking for the Invisibility Cloak – but before he had found it, he straightened up suddenly, looking around him once more. A funny prickling on the back of his neck had made Harry feel he was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the large square houses. He bent over his trunk again, but almost immediately stood up once more, his hand clenched on his wand. He had sensed rather than heard it: someone or something was standing in the narrow gap between the garage and the fence behind him. Harry squinted at the black alleyway. If only it would move, then he’d know whether it was just a stray cat or — something else. In Goblet of Fire chapter nine it happens again.

7 MIN15 hours ago

LikesComments

Wizards Unite: The Calamity

In the new Wizards Unite game by Niantic, the mysterious Calamity is threatening the Statute of Secrecy. It’s stealing magical people, creatures, and items of significance from different periods of time and leaving them randomly scattered around the world with the protection of various magical beings. The cause of the Calamity is under investigation by the Ministry, with the help of players of the game, who are recruits to the Statute of Secrecy Task Force. In the Back To Hogwarts event that ran from August 27 to September 3, Professor McGonagall alerted players that the Sorting Hat had been taken from Hogwarts, and in her concern, she moves on to some dark speculation: “For years after the Battle of Hogwarts, virtually all of our students could see the Thestrals. It was a constant reminder of the cost of that horrible fight. I just hope that the Calamity doesn’t eventually condemn another generation of students to the same fate.” Naturally, this led me to some dark speculation ...

3 MIN4 days ago

LikesComments

Free Will, Divination, and Time Travel Part 2

We know that prophecies exist in Harry’s world. All of the prophecies that affect Harry in some way eventually come to pass. The wording is always ambiguous enough to cause anxiety, though. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord” meets these particular characteristics and will either kill Voldemort or die trying… or kind of both. Voldemort’s “servant has been chained these twelve years” and will soon rejoin his master, but—plot twist—the servant isn’t the prisoner for whom the book is named. “When unseen children murder their fathers, then will the Dark Lord return”—but maybe not, erm, permanently. If Firenze is to be believed, occupants of the Wizarding World have some free will—but the “great tides of evil or change” will come and go more or less as the heavens foretell. The ambiguity of the Prophecies we encounter in the series seems to act as a catalyst for these “great tides of evil or change.” It seems to me that the anxiety provoked by these proph...

3 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

Free Will, Divination, and Time Travel Part 1

I’ve been reading the Jim Kay-illustrated edition of Sorcerer’s Stone to my cat, because I feel like that version deserves to be read aloud, and Scraps is a pretty good audience. We just finished Chapter 15 – The Forbidden Forest, and it brought something to the front of my mind that I’ve been thinking about for a while: is there free will in the Wizarding World? This is the chapter in which Harry meets the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest—Ronan, Bane, and Firenze. Bane is furious with Firenze for interacting with Harry and saving him from Voldemort. Firenze tells Harry, “The forest is not safe at this time—especially for you.” Later, he tells the furious Bane, “This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this forest, the better.” Bane responds, “What have you been telling him? … Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?” Every other time I have read this scene, I have al...

2 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

About Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

It’s the first of September and in the Wizarding world, children starting at age eleven will board the Hogwarts Express at King’s Cross Station to travel north to Scotland, and the new school year will begin. I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about some of the interesting facts and canon questions about this whole ritual. First off, the magical gateway into Platform Nine and Three Quarters is not hidden behind a brick wall. That looks really cool in the films, but that’s not accurate. According to Rowling, the magical platform is reached by walking through a metal barrier. Here’s what it says in Chamber of Secrets chapter 5: He wheeled his trolley forward cautiously until it was right against the barrier and pushed with all his might. The metal remained solid. (CS5) Here’s how it’s described in Prisoner of Azkaban: Mr. Weasley strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry’s trolley and apparently very interested in the InterCity 125 that...

4 MIN1 weeks ago

LikesComments

Canon Thoughts: Prisoner of Azkaban

In my series called Canon Thoughts, I’ve given my comments about books one and two of the Harry Potter series as well as about some of the early interviews which Rowling gave back in 1999 and 2000. I’ve also given my take on Crimes of Grindelwald. Now it’s time to talk about Prisoner of Azkaban. Ah, what do I say about book three? Many fans call this their favorite book of the series. I would definitely list it in my top three. So what makes this book so special? First of all, the book is the most tightly plotted of the series. Later books are plotted very well, certainly, but those books are also at least twice as long. There’s a lot more time in books four, five, and six for tangents and descriptions of day-to-day life at Hogwarts. Don’t get me wrong, I love that part of the stories. It’s one of the reasons why the Harry Potter books are so much more enticing than the Fantastic Beasts films. We all want to live at Hogwarts. We want to take classes and try out for the Quiddit...

5 MIN2 weeks ago

LikesComments

CC5: Act 1 Scenes 6-7: Living in the Past

In today’s minute I’m going to discuss Act 1 Scenes 6 and 7. Both of these scenes share a similar characteristic: Harry takes a lot of heat from someone who is stuck in the past. Delphi speaks a line in scene six, referring to Amos: “It’s tough to live with people stuck in the past, isn’t it?” In scene six, Amos is the character stuck in the past. He was never able to find peace over Cedric’s death, and after hearing the rumors of the super powerful Time Turner he comes to Harry’s house to try to guilt Harry into using this new Time Turner to go into the past and save Cedric’s life. Harry already has plenty of guilty feelings, though, he doesn’t need Amos to make him feel that way. Regardless, he won’t break the rules of Wizarding Law to change the past. Amos brings up the phrase ‘Kill the spare’, it is so tragic that the only reason Cedric died is because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. ‘Kill the spare’ comes up later in the play, so this is probably a l...

3 MIN2 weeks ago

LikesComments

Horcrux Deaths

Today we’re going to talk Horcruxes. Specifically, how they’re made. I started thinking about this subject when I read a particularly interesting passage from Half-Blood Prince. Here’s what caught my eye: Dumbledore says that Voldemort “seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. … After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.” (HBP23) The reason this struck me is that Dumbledore is actually wrong here. For the most part, Voldemort didn’t use important or significant deaths for making his Horcruxes. He may have intended to originally, but that certainly wasn’t how it worked out. Let’s take a look at all the murders he chose: The first Horcrux he made was the ring, created with the murders of his father and grandparents. These victims were certainly important as they represented his Muggle blood. By murdering the Ridd...

5 MIN3 weeks ago

LikesComments

OP33: What Was She Thinking

At the end of the last chapter, Hermione launched an impromptu plan to free herself and Harry from Umbridge, who had caught them using her office fireplace to talk to someone. Hermione’s plan was to pretend that they were talking to Dumbledore, telling him that the powerful secret weapon he’d created was ready to use. Hermione pretended to break down and say that she was willing to lead Umbridge to it. Umbridge fell for the ruse and forced her and Harry to lead her to the weapon, which Hermione told her was secreted away in the Forbidden Forest. In this chapter, the plan works. Well, sort of works. Okay, the only reason it works is because of the fortuitous arrival of Grawp. If the giant hadn’t shown up, things would have worked out very badly indeed for Harry and Hermione. What went wrong? More to the point, what exactly was Hermione’s plan? What was she thinking? From the things she says to the Centaurs, it’s clear that her plan was to bring Umbridge into the Forest and let t...

4 MINAUG 17

LikesComments

New Historicism and Harry Potter

New historicism is an approach to literature which regards a work of literature as a product of the historical moment in which it was created and as embedded in the ideas and ideologies present in that time. For example, a new historicist might be interested in what Elizabethan beliefs about gender roles can tell us about Shakespeare’s plays and vice-versa. New historicist criticism can become more challenging when we think about works of literature that are nearer to our own time and belief systems, but it can provide us with interesting tools for thinking about Harry Potter, recent history, and the way we think about both. It is a commonplace to compare Voldemort and the Death Eaters to Hitler and the Nazis, but new historicism prompts us to connect these similarities to the way the world was in the early 1990s when Rowling conceived of Harry’s story. As writers commenting on the abundance of television shows about Nazi Germany in the 1990s, such as Mark Schone, for example, hav...